I Embrace My Fate in 2008

Okay, so I got a little carried away the other night. I actually DID emerge from the shroud of my mosquito netting yesterday morning. The monstrous, dive-bombing moth was gone, and life went on.

Last night, for New Year’s Eve, I got a little toasted on half a bottle of Perrier Jouet and was in bed by 9:30. That is, after the power went out, and I had to help one of our security guards (the one who was a former child soldier) refill the diesel generator and get it cranked up. (There’s nothing like hanging out in total darkness with a man who once chopped his friends and relatives to pieces to help set a relaxed mood.) It was just another night in Gulu, no confetti, no dancing, no “Auld Lang Syne.” But I was awake at midnight; people started shooting guns or firecrackers or whatever around then.

I woke up this New Year’s Day feeling great; really good booze never gives me a hangover. But then I just had to read an email from my friend Ron, the newspaper designer in Chicago. He’s supposed to be going to Nairobi soon, to help redesign the Standard newspaper there. But I think boyfriend is gonna chill in the Windy City for a minute, at least until the election rioting, tear gas, looting and bloodshed slows down a bit.

Anyway, Ron just HAD to get my year started off with a heapin’ helpin’ of neurotic anxiety. He read my last posting and wrote, “Maybe that Moth was the Good Luck Butterfly, and just wanted to land on your nose and bless you with good fortune!"

Thanks a whole lot, Ron. Just yesterday, as I was thinking about my New Year’s Resolutions, I’d already started wondering, “Hmmm, moth….MOTHER…..what if that moth was actually an incarnation of my dead mother Eloise and adjunct mom, Julie, trying to surround me with love and support and blessings? I kicked the crap out of it 4 or 5 times, cursing and screaming the whole time.”

Happy New Year to Me. Slap Happy, that is.

But this momentary dip into my own personal pool of paranoia has not totally dampened my spirits. I’m gonna plant Julie’s flower seeds today, and watch "Now, Voyager" with Bette Davis, and I’m gonna meditate on my Yearly Motto. It’s a tradition I started a few years back, as a way to augment my New Year’s Resolutions. Every year, I come up with a little rhyming slogan that characterizes my goals for the year.

For example, in 2003, my motto was, “It’s All About ME in 2003!” That was the year the Asshole Attorney played me like a cheap harmonica, my brother David killed himself, and my father died. The next year it was, “I’ll Open a New Door in 2004.” That was the Year of the Anal Archivist. Then it was “It’s All the Way Live in 2005!” Mama died of dementia in February of that year, and I spent the rest of it in a zombie-like trance.

The next New Year’s Day dawned with, “It’s Back in the Mix in 2006!” That’s when my perimenopause symptoms got so bad I was visiting therapists, endocrinologists, gynecologists, and getting HIV tests on a weekly basis. I literally thought I was going insane, and nobody believed I could possibly be menopausal. But FINALLY I got an official diagnosis….my female plumbing WAS shriveling like a raisin in the sun!! I wasn’t going crazy! What a relief!

So, after 3 years of non-stop mental anguish, last New Year’s Eve I adopted a less naive view of life and developed a more sober motto. No more “Seventh Heaven in 2007” kind of thinking. Life had kicked me in the teeth far too many times. I needed to come up with a mature, realistic slogan.

I chose, “My Life will Leaven in 2007.” That meant all my life’s experiences had come together to make me acknowledge that I needed more balance. My life needed more love, more intimacy, more commitments to friendships and to building a nest of my own. I visualized my life rising like a yeasty pillow, expanding until all the empty corners were full.

Just yesterday, I decided that when I committed that motto to the Universe, I must have gotten one letter wrong. As you already know, last year I moved to a war zone and watched my beloved sister die. Higher power must have thought I’d vowed,

“My life will LEADEN in 2007.”

That’s why I’ve chosen the title of this posting as my motto for 2008. The Universe has a twisted, jacked-up sense of humor, and has successfully beaten all the “Wish Upon a Star” sentimentality out of me. However, the Fickle Finger of Fate hasn’t completely vanquished my spirit, because the past 4 years have turned me into one hell of a strong woman.

There’s this Russian proverb that goes, “Through the fire, fine metal is made.” Well, after the past 4 years, my hide is made of pure, weapons grade Plutonium. Fuck with me, and you’ll wish you’d stayed at home that day. I come CORRECT. I’ll tell you what I think, and what I want, and if you don’t like it, bite me.

Or, to be a bit less crude about it, I refer to something one of my mentors, Ruby T., shared with me. She’s president of a major foundation that focuses on children’s issues, and I daresay some of the most intellectually stimulating conversations I’ve had in the past 5 years have been with Ruby. Anyway, we were lunching in DC one day, during the middle of my non-stop Personal Crisis World Tour, when Ruby offered this profound bit of wisdom.

She said that in life, you have to be like a tree in the stream, and not a leaf on the stream. When you’re a leaf, you’re carried in whatever direction the current is flowing. You have no control over your life, and you’re just waiting and hoping you’ll wind up on the shore some day. But when you’re like a tree in the stream, you’re constant. Now, that doesn’t mean you’re unscathed; the roiling waters surround you, and constantly flow past you.

But you shall not be moved.

That metaphor has carried me through many a dark night of the soul. I think it even helped this past holiday season, when I was actually wooing despair for a minute. Suddenly, I realized the awesome power of choice. I could choose to fall apart.....and God knows I’m owed a sniveling, hysterical nervous breakdown after having to close my sister’s eyelids when she died. Or, I could choose to pull myself together and keep functioning.

So that’s why for 2008, I’m like, “Bring it ON, Fate. I am NOT the one to be messin' with this year. Gimme everything you got, and I’ll STILL keep on keepin’ on. In fact, I’ll even EMBRACE your ass before I breeze right on past you.”

That’s how I’M livin’ from now on, whether I’m in Gulu or DC. In fact, I started my day with Natalie Merchant’s song, “”Wonder." Please don’t think I’m tripping, or having delusions of grandeur. I’m just so, so grateful to be still standing. It’s a wondrous thing.

Doctors have come from distant cities
Just to see me
Stand over my bed
Disbelieving what they're seeing
They say I must be one of the wonders
Of God's own creation
And as far as they can see they can offer
No explanation.

Newspapers ask intimate questions
Want confessions
They reach into my head
To steal the glory of my story
They say I must be one of the wonders
Of God's own creation
And as far as they can see they can offer
No explanation

O, I believe
Fate smiled and destiny
Laughed as she came to my cradle
Know this child will be able
Laughed as my body she lifted
Know this child will be gifted
With love, with patience and with faith
She'll make her way

People see me
I'm a challenge to your balance
I'm over your heads
How I confound you and astound you
To know I must be one of the wonders
Of God's own creation
And as far as you see you can offer me
No explanation.

O, I believe
Fate smiled and destiny
Laughed as she came to my cradle
Know this child will be able
Laughed as she came to my mother
Know this child will not suffer
Laughed as my body she lifted
Know this child will be gifted
With love, with patience and with faith
She'll make her way